First Redfin, Now an Arizona FSBO Site
Posted on June 1st, 2007 by Jonathan Dalton
The mainstream media’s unpaid advertisements for various real estate models will continue tomorrow when the Arizona Republic runs an article … wait, an article Special to the Republic … on a Mesa company offering Internet listings to unrepresented sellers.
This isn’t going to be a standard re-hash of the usual Realtor arguments in favor of using a real estate professional to market your home versus going it alone. Rather, I thought it might be worth looking at the company the Republic felt was worth its own story.
We can find the first misstatement of fact on the company’s banner: #1 Real Estate Website in Phoenix, ranked by Alexa.com. Hmmm. According to Alexa’s traffic rankings, the company’s site ranks 4,795,956th in traffic:
Dalton’s Arizona Homes, meanwhile, ranks 438,279th:
Maybe the problem is that I live in Glendale, not Phoenix. I’ll leave that distinction to the Arizona Department of Real Estate, which is charged with monitoring the accuracy of advertising claims.
The site also claims 26% of all homes are sold by unrepresented sellers. Again, I would like to learn the source of that statistic. And lastly, the site also claims there is no commission EVER … unless you click on the MLS link and discover that, yes, you will need to pay a commission if you want your home in the MLS.
(Even more interesting are the homes listed on this site but not in the MLS, such as the one - yes, one - listing in El Mirage that says “no agent.” That probably won’t be much of an issue since those of us in the real estate industry wouldn’t look at this site. Or even know it existed if not for the incredible journalistic skills of the Republic staff.)
I do agree with the claim that home buyers begin their search with unrepresented sellers. The company says this is because buyers know listed homes have a “padded” or “inflated” listing price. More accurately, many buyers begin with homes being sold without the aid of a real estate agent because they’re expecting to find a bargain.
And there are bargains to be had as sellers discover their homes aren’t selling nearly as fast as they may believe. After all, advertising your home on a site with only a very, very small percentage of the 53,000-plus properties on the market, doesn’t exactly generate the widest interest.
Turning away from the website to the shill reporter from the Republic, you’ll also find these gems of wisdom:
- Interview several real estate agents. (Don’t hire them, mind you. Just interview them to find out what you should be doing.)
- Check what comparable homes have sold for in your area. Homes sales often are published in newspapers, and some real estate Web sites can help sellers find comparables for a fee. (But we’d rather you check the home sales in the paper so we can maintain some semblance of circulation.)
- Get some help. (Just not from someone who makes a living selling homes.)
- Hire professionals. (Just not a real estate agent.)
- Market the home. Use a combination of methods to advertise and sell, including the Internet, classified newspaper ads, yard signs and flier boxes.
I must escape the bullet points for this last one.
Flier boxes are tremendously helpful - all of your neighbors will thank you for providing such easily accessible information about the price you’ve placed on your home.
Yard signs also are helpful. Make sure to add the line “by appointment only” to emphasize you’re selling on your terms, not the buyers.
Internet marketing actually is a solid idea. The only question is where on the Internet you wish to market your home … on sites that falsely claim to receive high traffic, or those that actually do. (And I’m not including my own site as I’m but a bit of krill in the online real estate ocean. Think big: Realtor.Com. Google.Com. Trulia.Com.)
That leaves newspaper advertising, the medium that has declined in usage steadily over the past several years. Print is dying if not dead. Many, many agents have discovered this and lowered their print advertising budget to a nice, round number: zero. There is no tangible benefit to advertising in your local newspaper, except it keeps the newspaper afloat to print self-serving, biased tripe such as this article.
Technorati Tags: Phoenix real estate, unrepresented sellers, commissions
Popularity: 3% [?]
That site also claims:
“Arizona sellers enjoy a 92% sucess rate and sell for 98% of asking price with NO COMMISSION.”
Let’s just hope they don’t need to correctly spell “success” on any of the documentation….
FANTASTIC post. I laughed out loud! Nice job.
“There is no tangible benefit to advertising in your local newspaper, except it keeps the newspaper afloat to print self-serving, biased tripe such as this article.” That, in a nutshell, is the real reason for the article in the first place! Great expose!
[…] is no exception, with a girthsome celebration of FSBObesity, but Jonathan Dalton and Jay Thompson have the paper’s […]
Thanks, Russell! With you here, I’ll never wash this blog again just in case the mojo rubbed off …
Tony … not very well disguised, but accurate. The Republic is nothing if not self-serving.
Jay … one thought I had is they can claim almost any type of success (or sucess) rate on the sales price as prices from unrepresented sellers are notoriously in flux. 98% of a constantly moving target isn’t too bad and it almost impossible to verify.
AWESOME!!! Someone has their head screwed on right! It’s amazing that the media is hyping these companies that offer the seller a free listing. They never mention a simple economics lesson “No such Thing as a FREE LUNCH”! They are paying somehow!
[…] Dalton catches a whopper of a lie in a mainstream newspaper story in First Redfin Now an Arizona FSBO Site and Jay Thompson backs him up promptly with #1 Real Estate Website in Phoenix. Oh […]
That 26% figure is probably right. I’ve heard it as high as 30% from folks in the title industry. You have to remember though, many of those are investor deals that may be represented by real estate counsel with or without Realtor credentials on properties that had no need for MLS representation.
That would make sense, Michael. And there also are a lot of real estate deals by real estate agents that never pass through the MLS either (usually for their own investing.)
[…] Dalton Phoenix Real Estate Blog: First Redfin, Now an Arizona FSBO Site - I’ve always been a fan of Jonathan’s writing. It’s often funny, creative, […]
[…] of the four favorited submissions came from Phoenix area weblogs. Another datapoint in the epicenter […]
[…] ‘First Redfin, Now an Arizona FSBO Site’ from Jonathan Dalton’s Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog, […]
Maybe the Republic uses Leslie Stahl as their fact checker. That would account for the wild and, for the most part, unsubstantiated “facts” that they printed.
Pretty funny article. I like the comments after the bullets. I wonder if they will have the same advice for a seller who faces a lawsuit for lack of disclosure…interview a couple lawyers to find out how to defend yourself, just don’t hire one.
I just wish I could get free advertising like that … well, without having to write it myself.
And thanks, Jennifer, for the laugh this early in the morning.
[…] Dalton presents First Redfin, Now an Arizona FSBO Site posted at Phoenix Arizona Real […]